Energy Expended in Robotic Deburring of Circular Components Using a SCARA Robot

It is well known that in mechanical engineering production systems, an estimated 15–30% of the manufacturing cost is towards deburring operations. While small components may be deburred using one of the many technologies available, larger components like castings have to be deburred manually or in recent times with assistance from robots. In fact, most of the present mass production systems aim towards automation and robotics for carrying out these operations. At present, substantial research effort is being spent towards robotic deburring. The major issue with robotic deburring is that the tool path gets affected in view of the interaction of cutting forces between the work piece and robot. The objective of present research is to carry out multidirectional investigations on robotic deburring using a SCARA robot, the application being confined mostly to the deburring of circular components. It is well known that SCARA (selective Compliant articulated Robot Arm) is a robotic manipulator with four degrees of freedom (3 rotary and 1 prismatic) and is preferred where speed, high precision and accuracy is required. In this work investigations on SCARA robot are carried out for different sized component which is positioned at different distances with respect to the base which leads to present a solution to component placement with in the workspace (solvability analysis) and also presents the placement position of a deburring component with minimum joint torques. A brief discussion on simulation of SCARA robot with force feedback control is presented, since this plays a major role in the maintenance of the path in the presence of varying cutting forces, and also presented kinematic and dynamic analysis of a SCARA robot for deburring of rectangular paths. The overall kinematic and dynamic analyses of the SCARA robot with different positional configurations of the workpieces in the workspace enables the energy to be computed for assessing the most desirable state for deburring which consumes the least energy. This data thus obtained enables a comparison and pseudo-optimize the best configuration for the entire deburring operation. Although the methodology is at present confined mostly to circular paths, similar analyses can be carried out for rectangular path deburring (similar to those on engine cylinder heads) and oblong and elliptical profiles which are commonly found in many engineering components.